The approaches described in this section could be pursued but are not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.
User data is often organized in file systems. In general, a file system can be viewed as a directed graph of objects with nodes and leaves representing files and directories. Directories can further include subdirectories and files. In a multiuser computer system, each file or directory can be assigned attributes that regulate user permission for viewing, editing, and creation of the files and directories. Attributes of directories and files are kept in the directed graph as objects.
One of the main requirements of file systems is providing a backup version or a replica of the file system. A replica of the file system can be created and stored at a remote site or network storage. A backup process can run periodically to transfer a current version of the file system to a remote site or network storage using a wide area network (WAN) and required. The backup process can be optimized to transfer only those parts of the file system that have been modified since the last backup.